Archive for January, 2006
Posted by joshua on January 31, 2006 at 9:08 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
On North Korea, President Bush said very little: “The demands of justice require their freedom as well [specifically naming the people of North Korea, Syria, Burma, and Zimbabwe, among others].”
The rhetoric was no more soaring, and certainly no more specific, than anything I’ve heard him say before. I can live without soaring rhetoric for public diplomacy’s sake, but what I can’t forgive is that this president has frittered away six years without forming a forceful or even a particularly coherent policy. He has very little time left to do anything at this point.
If you care about my reactions to the rest of it . . .
**
Fred Barnes will get letters from my relatives for putting Israel in the Axis of Evil instead of Iran. Ouch.
As he enters the room, POTUS kisses the Secretary of State on the cheek. No, she’s not unattractive, but doesn’t that seem wierd? It does to me.
Sheila Jackson-Lee: please sit down. And who let Prince Charles and Cindy Sheehan in? Have we no standards?
Opening with Coretta Scott-King: classy.
The appeal to civility may have been appropriate, but it was misplaced at the very beginning and fell somewhat flat, and vaguely partisan. Still, the audience is probably keeping score of who’s been flouting Godwin’s Law.
We seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some think that goal is misplaced and idealistic. In reality, the future of our country depends on it. . . . Democracies replace resentment with hope. . . . Every step toward freedom makes our nation safer, so we will act boldly in freedom’s cause.
Good quotes on the history of democracy advancing.
Terrorists: We must take their declared intentions seriously. They aim to seize power in Iraq and use it as a base for attacks against America. Invokes Beslan and London, clearly suggesting that it could happen here.
If we leave these vicious attackers alone, they will not leave us alone. They would simply move the battle to our own shores. There is no peace in retreat, and there is no honor in retreat.
“The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil.” Charles Rangel and didn’t applaud, and from my glance at Kerry, he didn’t, either! What in that statement is objectionable to any American?
Iraq: He’s telling me what I already know. I’m confident, yada, yada. “We are winning.” On the battlefield, perhaps, but we could lose in the American pressrooms. Can you show us a chart telling us how Iraqi readiness and numbers are increasing, versus coalition forces? Give the doubters an image that shows tangible progress. Also, I’d have cited the split in the insurgency.
Distinguishes “responsible counsel” from defeatism. “Second guessing is not a strategy.” Good! FINALLY talks about the consequences of premature withdrawal, but not graphically enough. Tell us about the millions of Iraqi refugees, the full-fledged civil war, Iran and Turkey fighting for Kirkuk and Mosul–possibly (in Iran’s case) with nukes–and the slaughter that would result. But he did mention that the terrorists would be emboldened to come here. Now tell us about bombs in shopping malls and schools.
Letter from sergeant who was KIA in Iraq: Great. What a way to honor this man’s cause. I’d have liked to hear more. Much more. Plenty of the soldiers and Marines have had some very eloquent things to say about why they volunteered for duty there.
Citing the imperfect elections in Egypt, Hamas win in Palestine, halting Saudi reforms. Just the right tone. “Liberty is the right and hope of all humanity.” Iran: will he encourage the people to rise? “The nations of the world must not allow the Iranian regime to gain nyoocyoolar weapons.” Nice and emphatic. Message to citizens of Iran: you have a right to win your own freedom. We hope to be the closest of friends of a free and democratic Iran. Good. Does this signal a U.S. policy shift away from cultivating the regime’s alleged moderates, toward a policy of encouraging dissent and resistance? It’s not entirely clear. As with North Korea, I really see no other option, and believe that even this will take considerable time while we use our navies and our economic leverage to isolate both countries as much as possible.
My expectations of Bush’s speaking abilities are so low that I’m almost always impressed that he’s not as terrible as he was in the first Bush-Kerry debate.
Defense of telephone eavesdropping: I still have no clear idea of what his statutory basis for this is. I’m convinced that it’s necessary, but I’m not convinced that it’s legal. I think a nation of laws deals honestly with such things by putting them into the statute books. “We will not wait to get hit again.” Great applause line; Hillary Clinton sat there with a smarmy look on her face and reminded me that she’s not really the hawk she wants us to think she is.
Economy and taxes. Yes, I like low taxes. That eventually means you’ll have to spend less. Medicare reform? I’m not quite dead. If you polled voters my age, I image most would want to abolish the entire expensive enterprise and invest the savings in a stable mix of large-caps and T-bonds.
Earmark reform. Hmmm. Line-item veto. An old Reagan idea that I liked then and now. Entitlements. Dream on. Not when you’re a lame duck. Start by proposing less spending.
Hat tip to Bill Clinton: more of Hillary’s icy smirk in spite of that. My God, how I despise the sight of her, and I suspect most people who were watching reacted the same way. No wonder Bill cheated. If I had a wife like her, I’d pray nightly that the sweet release of death would be swift and merciful. Or maybe I’d just bag the interns.
Medicare. Health care. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
[OFK goes to fridge to quaff some delicious san-sa-joo.]
The energy stuff is always exciting until I remember that I’ve been hearing this 45 minutes into SOTU speeches since Jimmy Carter was in office. And I have yet to see any of those schemes come to pass. But yes, the thought of transforming Saudi Arabia into a sea of sand, burned-out car bodies, flapping canvas tents, and rusting tin shacks is deeply appealing to me. As if.
Social stuff: Impressive stats on drug use, crime, and pregnancy, but delivered like Jimmy Kimmel’s impression of Carl Malone. Abortion, gay marriage, stem cells, judicial activism: he sounded like he was tossing out a chicken leg to every snapping croc. Me, I’m no fan of judicial activism and in my own work always give the law my most rigorous interpretation as I think Congress intended. But to those who say that liberals have a monopoly on that concept, I have three words: Judge Roy Moore. Fortunately, I don’t think Roberts or Alito approach Moore’s line of thinking even distantly, but I’m not as sure what Harriet Myers might have done.
Good closer: “History is written in courage.” “We will lead freedom’s advance.” “[O]ptimistic about our country.” “Confident of the victories to come.”
He didn’t really knock it out of the park, but he never does. A solid GWB speech. Like every SOTU, a laundry list. He emphasized the things that he needed to emphasize. And he still revels in his inability to say “nuclear.”
And now for the Dem response . . . .
Missionary Position: Tim Kaine
What a dweeb. All I can think of how awful his opponent must have been. Someone grab a rope and tie down that left eyebrow! But at least he’s not Harry Reid.
What’s sad is that I can’t even think of a single Dem of national prominence or any substantial tenure worth putting on television. Barack Obama? A first-termer, and how many times can they reuse him? Joe Lieberman? Barely even a Democrat anymore. Biden? Not after making a pompous ass of himself during two successive confirmation battles, which left him much less loved by members of both parties. The Ice Woman? I suppose the best answer I can give is Harold Ford, a young Tennessee congressman, who is still in the woodshed for challenging the shrill and unappealing Nancy Pelosi. How sad.
On the war: we support the troops but mid-war, we humbly suggest questioning the entire basis for going in and questioning the decision itself. What’s wrong with that argument? The calendar. And they’re cutting VA benefits! I have absolutely no idea what he thinks we should do, probably because his party has absolutely no agreement on it. The Democratic Party can no longer afford to offend Kos or Eric Alterman.
Posted by joshua on January 31, 2006 at 7:10 am · Filed under Uncategorized
If you can’t actually defend Kim Jong Il’s counterfeiting of the dollar, and you can’t deny that the evidence is strong enough to convince even the Chinese, what’s a dedicated appeaser to say?
The talking point appears to be “Why now?” Meaning, why did the United States cruelly dash our high hopes of progress in the nuclear talks with North Korea now, as opposed to cruelly dashing similar hopes at any other time during the last decade or so of ultra-high hopes? I suppose if you accept the premises for those statements, I’ll never convince you of anything, but here’s what proliferation expert David Asher says about it:
David L. Asher, a former State Department official who oversaw the investigation into North Korean counterfeiting, offered a different explanation. He said the Bush administration ordered the inquiry soon after taking power in 2001, and it took 150 federal officials four years of sleuthing to assemble the evidence, much of which has not been made public.
“The timing is just a coincidence,” said Mr. Asher, who was coordinator of the department’s North Korea working group until last year. “The administration wanted us to prove this. They didn’t want this to end up like Iraqi W.M.D.s,” referring to the so-called weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration never found in Iraq.
In particular, Mr. Asher said, the administration waited until September to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies time to finish two elaborate undercover operations focusing on members of China’s notorious Triad criminal syndicates. The operations, which ended in August, netted $4 million worth of supernotes with narcotics and counterfeit versions of name brand cigarettes.
The operations, called Royal Charm and Smoking Dragon, arrested 59 people suspected of being gang members, including some lured into the United States when federal agents posing as organized crime figures invited them to a staged wedding. Before they were arrested, some of the suspects even offered to sell federal agents shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, Mr. Asher said.
He said he did not know if the missiles had been made in North Korea.
What I’ve read in other press reports actually suggests that the missiles were made in China, but if the North Koreans were trying to smuggle SAMs into the country, it’s yet another restraint removed from the position I advocate, which is to summarily extend the Second Amendment to the North Korean people.
Asher’s version does make sense on this basic level, however: there was simply no time that would be convenient for appeasement crowd when the North Koreans have successfully dragged out talks for more than a decade. In fact, it could be argued more convincingly that the North Koreans’ behavior has never been more recalcitrant and bellicose, and that even without this investigation, hopes had not been lower for years.
Posted by joshua on January 31, 2006 at 7:07 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Kim Jong Il’s son-in-law has been rehabilitated. I don’t even have enough reliable facts to speculate about what this means.
Posted by joshua on January 31, 2006 at 7:01 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Here.
Posted by joshua on January 30, 2006 at 9:31 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Not a very ambassadorial thing to say, perhaps, but there are plenty of reasons to justify Washington’s harder new line toward North Korea of late. Leave aside the decade-plus of North Korean cheating and defiance of any standards followed by the rest of humanity. Although evidence of a policy shift is still inconclusive, it’s arguable that several developments last fall strengthened the hand of hard-liners (me, for one) seeking the abandonment of negotiation from weakness in favor of the economic strangulation and political subversion of the North Korean regime.
First came the culmination of the unfortunately named but highly successful Operation Smoking Dragon last August. Smoking Dragon was the culmination of a lengthy investigation, resulted in the seizure of a large quantities of high-quality North Korean counterfeit $100 bills, and started a cascade of revelations and indictments related to North Korea’s counterfeiting. Second came The Living, Breathing Agreement in September, which the North Koreans repudiated in less than 24 hours from the moment of signature.
Left unreported until today is the story (via the Sunday Times) of how North Korea’s accelated nuclear cooperation with Iran in the very midst of the talks, combined with other ample evidence of North Korea’s bad faith, repelled American negotiators.
THE drab compound that houses the Iranian embassy in Pyongyang is the focus of intense scrutiny by diplomats and intelligence services who believe that North Korea is negotiating to sell the Iranians plutonium from its newly enlarged stockpile — a sale that would hand Tehran a rapid route to the atomic bomb.
Then there’s this alarming fact:
The US State Department revealed last summer that 11 shipments of nuclear materials bound for North Korea and Iran had been intercepted under the proliferation security initiative, in which 60 nations including Britain co-operate in air and sea searches. It refused to disclose any details.
How this doesn’t justify–at an absolute minimum–the sinking of the ships and the trial of the crewmembers–is simply beyond me. In my own opinion, it also justifies far more urgency in our dealings with both regimes, including the assassination of North Korean and Iranian operatives involved in the trafficking of nuclear materials. Think, for a moment, of what’s at stake here.
OK, now for the good part:
Alarm bells sounded again in Washington late last autumn after nuclear disarmament talks in China ground to an inconclusive and ill-tempered halt. Christopher Hill, the American negotiator, came out of a meeting to tell colleagues that “those f***ers say they’re going to go right ahead and build nuclear weapons no matter what we do”, according to an official who overheard the remark.
Well, duh.
The North Koreans’ diplomacy with Iran went more smoothly, it seems. North Korea agreed to provide Iran plutonium, nuclear research, and missile technology in exchange for oil and natural gas.
There is no time to waste. If it’s not enough that they’re killing millions of their own people, it should suffice that they’re conspiring to kill millions of ours, without the slightest sincere interest in disarmament. These evil men must be stopped.
HT: Regime Change Iran
Posted by Joshua Stanton on January 30, 2006 at 7:23 pm · Filed under NK Economics, North Korea
Although this Bloomberg article, North Korea’s Kim Allows Tentative Stirrings of Profit Motive, is over a month old, it is well worth a read. It covers some basic aspects of the North Korean economy and prospect for future development.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on January 30, 2006 at 6:39 pm · Filed under Uncategorized, North Korea
Probably President Bush has no idea that the “Axis of Evil” phrase in his January 2002 State of the Union Address would stir up so much controversy. For myself and what I must assume most viewers or listeners, the metaphor was so obvious so as not to warrant much comment; it was a catchy phrase conveying that those three nations were the highest priority in the areas of security and proliferation. Not so obvious for others.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Joshua Stanton on January 30, 2006 at 4:53 pm · Filed under Inside NK
If you’ve ever wanted to send a message via radio into North Korea, now you can. Liven up your parties by playing your personal message to Kim Jong-il! Or on a more serious note, defectors and their sponsors can send messages to loved ones still in North Korea. Open Radio for North Korea (nkradio.com) allows you to record a message and pay to have it transmitted into the DPRK and NE China, with a variety of options. Broadcasts are at night on AM and cost US$50-60 for 15 minutes. They also have a ‘language revision’ option whereby the message is edited to conform to Korean language that North Koreans will understand, i.e., cleansed of the many loanwords common in South Korea. (Note: the site owners have been emailed about the errors on the image on the English portion of their site.)
Posted by joshua on January 29, 2006 at 2:20 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Hat tip to the Nomad for this one. You can be sure that if these guys had caused this accident, it would be a major news story, and possibly an international incident. Hopelessly skewed coverage of this kind causes me to conclude that our soldiers won’t be appreciated until they’re gone, and when Korean taxpayers are doing what American taxpayers have done for far too long.
Posted by joshua on January 29, 2006 at 2:34 am · Filed under Uncategorized
What sort of moral shallowness transforms murderers into fashion icons? Sometimes, there’s no serious answer for unserious consumers of the radical chic pablum that twelve year old Cambodian girls stitch together for affluent suburban college kids.
Posted by joshua on January 28, 2006 at 2:51 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
If true, this could be a tangible sign of sincere Chinese annoyance with its North Korean viceroy. Via Daily NK, then Yonhap:
SEOUL, Jan. 28 (Yonhap) — A local Internet news site reported Saturday that a top aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was arrested in Macao earlier this month.
Citing Japanese diplomatic sources, DailyNK claimed Kang Sang-choon, a secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and chief of staff to Kim, was detained in connection to circulation of forged U.S. dollars and money laundering.
DailyNK, which specializes in news related to the reclusive communist country, also said the arrest may have taken place on Jan. 11 and that South Korean and Japanese intelligence services are in the process of verifying the information.
Regarding the allegations, a source at the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s spy agency, said it received information on the matter. The official, however, said the agency is not in a position to offer a confirmation at this time.
Experts here said Kang is not involved in his country’s policy-making process.
Daily NK has a group photo of Kang and Kim Jong Il, and more information:
Kang Sang Choon has served as the chief of North Korean officials in North Korea in 1991, and after his visit to Macao through China has been reported in 1995, has been known as the person who frequently visited Macao for Kim Jong Il’s cash flow.
Lee Han Young had testified, “There is a department in the Central Party that has only one task of buying presents of Kim Jong Il. The secretary of that department is Kang Sang Choon.” Lee is the nephew of Kim Jong Il’s wife who defected to South Korea and made Kim Jong Il’s private life to the public by his book, “The Royal Family,” murdered in February, 1997.
Lee testified, “Under Secretary Kang, starting in Japan, visits Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany, and Austria. He buys about one million dollars worth of things yearly.”
Fujimoto Kenji, a Japanese and a former cook for Kim Jong Il and the writer of the book, “Kim Jong Il’s cook” introduced Kang Sang Choon as being “responsible for escorting in the secretary office.”
The obvious disclaimers apply. Decide for yourself.
Posted by joshua on January 28, 2006 at 12:21 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Long-time readers of this blog know that for nearly two years, I’ve advocated aggressive economic measures against the North Korean regime that would force international finance to choose between doing business in the North and in the United States. Such sanctions would wring the most knowledgeable and best-financed investors out of North Korea until it made signficant and irreversible steps toward comporting itself with the rules by which humanity lives.
Until now, the Bush Administration has failed to take strong-yet-practical actions in the face of Kim Jong Il’s blithe recalcitrance and unabated brutality. After more than a decade of U.S., South Korean, Japanese, and Chinese diplomacy, Kim still isn’t negotiating in good faith.
That’s why it’s so gratifying to read this story. It reports that the White House is considering an executive order that would deny any financial institution doing business with North Korea the right to operate inside the United States:
The U.S. is readying fresh sanctions against North Korea over the regime’s alleged financial crimes that will be significantly more severe than the ones already in place. Raphael Perl, a congressional researcher in charge of tracking Pyongyang’s drug dealings and counterfeiting, said Friday authorities completed a rough draft of an executive order that would stop any financial firms involved in transactions with North Korea from conducting business in the U.S.
That will mean all banks, brokerage houses and insurance firms and refers not only to illegal transactions but to any financial deals with the North, Perl told the Chosun Ilbo on the phone. Once the regulations are finalized, “the message to financial institutions operating in the U.S. will be that the time has come for them to choose between the U.S. or North Korea,” he added.
What goes unmentioned in this article is the likely effect this will have on the Kaesong Industrial Park, South Korea’s plan to enrich itself by shifting from feisty, unionized South Korean labor to cowed North Koreans who’ll take $57.50 a month and (pretend to) like it, minus “voluntary” payments to the North Korean regime, of course. (In what must be the ultimate sign of South Korean labor unions’ capitulation of their constituents’ interests to the enrichment of Kim Jong Il, the South’s big unions have yet to raise a peep about the export of union jobs, or to question the safety of working conditions or the sufficiency of the wages under which their Northern brothers labor).
[U]nder the draft order, almost all finance companies would be effectively prohibited from doing business with North Korea. That would also affect international financial institutions outside the U.S. and thus deal a heavy blow to North Korea’s overseas trade.
In Perl’s reading, financial institutions would have a choice whether they are with or against the U.S., but given the importance of their U.S. interests, it would in effect force most major international firms to stop dealing with the North.
I have one very modest kvetch. This exec order is tied to counterfeiting, certainly a grave concern and a legitimate interest of this country, but less grave a concern (at least, to me) than millions dying in man-made famines–including the one that may yet happen because the North kicked out the World Food Program–and hundreds of thousands in concentration camps. My own proposal (the draft text is here) would have tied the financial disincentive to the sale or use of the products of forced labor, which is probably the foundation of the North’s oppression of its own people. It would also have the advantage of compensating the victims, creating an incentive for defections, and using the incentive of attorney fees to attract aggressive lawyers into what could prove to be a litigation quagmire for any company that invests in the North.
Nonetheless, this move is an excellent start, one that could signal a new hard-headedness in Washington. And although the South Korean government is sure to complain–no matter the legitimacy of the U.S. interest–it’s sufficiently justified when the U.S. has enough proof of what North Korea is doing to bring criminal cases to trial.
And of course, I make no personal secret of my desire for ending Kim Jong Il’s reign, and ultimately for uniting the Koreas under democratic rule (although plenty of other Americans do make a secret of it, perhaps for good diplomatic reasons). This alone will not drive Kim Jong Il from power, but it will do severe damage to North Korea’s remaining foreign income, most of it from arms sales or illegal trade. To do that, it’s not necessary to drive all foreign capital out of North Korea; it’s only necessary to prevent any significant influx. Pyongyang’s own greed, paranoia, arbitrariness, and inefficiency will do the rest.
Posted by joshua on January 27, 2006 at 8:17 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The Donga Ilbo reports that North Korea has banned fishing from motorboats.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on January 27, 2006 at 7:52 pm · Filed under Refugees, Defectors, Censorship, Democracy
In one of the most disturbing stories of the year, we see the reprehensible authoritarian depths to which the South Korean government will stoop to protect its political power and money-making ventures from the truth that must be kept inside the North Korean defectors who know it. . . .
南北 비판한 탈북자 19% “말조심 협박 받아”
Nineteen Percent of North Korean Escapees Who Criticize Governments of South or North Korea Report Being Censored with Threats [The article uses the term 새터민, or escapees, to describe the defectors, instead of the more common 탈북자].
한국 정부나 북한 정권을 비판한 새터민(탈북자) 5명 가운데 1명이 정부 관계자에게서 “말조심하라”는 주의나 협박을 받았다는 조사 결과가 나왔다.
Newly released research results reveals that one in five North Korean defectors who criticized the South Korean government or North Korean regime receive warnings or threats from [South Korean] administration officials.
국가인권위원회(위원장 조영황·趙永晃)가 26일 발표한 ‘국내 탈북자의 인권상황 개선 연구 보고서’에 따르면 새터민의 16.2%가 한국 사회에서 자유롭게 말할 수 없다고 응답했다.
The National Human Rights Commission (Cho Young-Whang, Chairman) released its report, “Research Report on Improvements in the Human Rights Situation of North Korean Escapees Living in South Korea,” on [January] 26th. According to the report, 16.2% of escapees reported that they don’t have freedom of speech in South Korea today.
인권위의 의뢰를 받은 국제평화전략연구원은 새터민 500여 명을 설문 조사하고 50명을 심층 면접해 이 보고서를 작성했다.
The HRC commissioned the International Peace Strategy Center to conduct the research for its report. The IPC questioned 500 North Korean escapees and did more in-depth interviews of 50 of them.
한국 정부나 북한 당국, 김정일(金正日) 북한 국방위원장에 대해 비판적인 글을 쓴 적이 있는 새터민 가운데 19%는 정부 관계자에게서 말조심하라는 주의 또는 협박을 들었고 18.2%는 정착 지원금과 생계 보조비 등을 지원받는 데 불이익을 당한 적이 있다고 응답했다.
Nineteen percent of escapees who had criticized the South Korean government, the North Korean regime, or Kim Jong Il [in writing] received a warning or threat by administration officials. Another 18.2% responded that they were disadvantaged in the distribution of their initial government settlement benefit and living subsidies.
새터민의 73.7%가 가족 월평균 수입이 100만 원 미만이라고 응답했으며 이들 가운데 가족 월평균 수입이 50만 원 미만인 사람은 41.3%였다. 경제적으로 잘산다고 생각한다는 새터민은 2.2%에 불과했다.
Seventy-three point seven percent of escapees responded that their average monthly family incomes were under one million won [$1,000], and 41.3% said their monthly family incomes were under W500,000. Only 2.2% of escapees considered themselves wealthy.
새터민들은 정착 과정에서 많은 차별을 받고 있다고 생각하는 것으로 나타났다. 10명 가운데 7명이 직장에서 차별을 받는다고 응답했고 승진에서도 차별을 받는다는 응답자가 절반을 넘었다.
Most escapees believed they had been discriminated against during the settlement process. Seven out of 10 reported being discriminated against at work, and more than half said they had been discriminated against in the promotion process.
새터민 학생 가운데 절반은 탈북 사실을 친구들에게 숨기고 학교에 다니고 있었으며, 약 20%는 새터민이라는 이유로 학교에서 따돌림을 당한다고 응답했다.
Around half of North Korean-born students conceal their origins from their friends, and about 20% feel isolated by their peers at school because they are North Korean.
새터민들은 새터민의 인권 개선을 위해 새터민을 보는 한국 사회의 시각 변화, 취업난 해소, 국내 적응을 위한 교육 기회 확대, 대안학교 설립 등이 시급하다고 응답했다.
When asked about the most urgent priorities for improving their human rights, ecapees cited the need to change South Korean society’s views about them, to address their employment difficulties, to improve their educational opportunities for adapting to life in the South, and building alternative schools for their children.
I just don’t know how anyone can defend this. Expanded to its literal meaning, the question applies to the United States government. And a big tip of my hat to my favorite target, the National Human Rights Commission, for having the balls to release this report.
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